Automatic boxing machines currently used pack articles into containers or boxes obtained by opening or erecting blanks of paper material stored in flat configuration.
The blanks in flat configuration are loaded onto a conveyor of the boxing machine feeding line, which transports them up to a gripping head, which picks them up and erects the flat blanks to the open configuration.
The blanks in flat configuration are usually loaded onto the conveyor arranged in horizontal piles, each pile being formed by a bunch of blanks arranged one beside another and vertically erected, called group of blanks hereinafter.
Each group of blanks is usually loaded manually by an operator onto the horizontal inlet conveyor, which defines the feeding line of the boxing machine.
Obviously, loading operation must be performed with such a frequency that ensures the continuity of the feeding of blanks and avoids interruptions in the boxing machine operation.
The development of modern boxing machines has allowed very high working speeds, which makes it very difficult, thus giving a burden to the operators to load manually the above groups of blanks onto the feeding line of the boxing machine.
Therefore, machines have been proposed which transfer automatically the groups of blanks to the feeding line of the boxing machine, by robotized means, which take single groups of blanks and load them onto the conveyor.
The use of the robotized means has solved the problem of continuous and effective feeding of the blanks to the boxing machine only partially.
Actually, although the robotized means are capable of loading efficiently and continuously the groups of blanks onto the conveyor of the boxing machine feeding line, they cannot ensure the maintenance of the correct mutual position of the blanks of two groups loaded one after the other, without displacements or overturning of the blanks, which could cause jamming and thus do not permit the continuity of the feedings of the blanks to the above gripping head, which would result in frequent and unproductive off-times of the boxing machine.